Something Rotten (Thursday Next 4)

'That you'll come to my Eradications Anonymous group this evening.'

'Mum—!'

'It will do you good. You might enjoy it. Might meet someone. Might make you forget Linden.'

'Landen. His name's Landen. And I don't need or want to forget him.'

'Then the group will support you. Besides, you might learn something. Oh, and would you take Hamlet with you? Mr Bismarck has a bee in his bonnet about Danes because of that whole silly Schleswig-Holstein thingummy.'

I narrowed my eyes. Could Joffy be right?

'What about Emma? Do you want me to take her, too?'

'No. Why?'

'Er, no reason.'

I picked up Friday and gave him a kiss.

'Be good, Friday. You're staying with Nana for the day.'

Friday looked at me, looked at Mum, stuck his finger up his nose and said: 'Sunt in culpa qui officia id est laborum?'

I ruffled his hair and he showed me a bogey he had found. I declined the present, wiped his hand with a hanky, then went to look for Hamlet. I found him in the front garden demonstrating a thrust-and-parry sword fight to Emma and Pickwick. Even Alan had left off bullying the other dodos and was watching in silence. I called out to Hamlet and he came running.

'Sorry,' said the prince as I opened the garage doors, just demonstrating how that damn fool Laertes gets his comeuppance.'

I showed him how to get into the Porsche, dropped in myself, started the engine and drove off down the hill towards the Brunei Centre.

'You seem to be getting on very well with Emma.'

'Who?' asked Hamlet, unconvincingly vague.

'Lady Hamilton.'

'Oh, her. Nice girl. We have a lot in common.'

'Such as—?'

'Well,' said Hamlet, thinking hard, 'we both have a good friend called Horatio.'

We motored on down past the magic roundabout and I pointed out the new stadium with its four floodlighting towers standing tall among the low housing.

'That's our croquet stadium,' I said, 'thirty thousand seats. Home of the Swindon Mallets croquet team.'

'Croquet is a national sport out here?'

'Oh yes,' I replied, knowing a thing or two about it since I used to play myself. 'It has evolved a lot since the early days. For a start the teams are bigger – ten a side in World Croquet League. The players have to get their balls through the hoops in the quickest possible time, so it can be quite rough. A stray ball can pack a wallop and a flailing mallet is potentially lethal. The WCL insist on body armour and perspex barriers for the spectators.'

I turned left into Manchester Road and parked behind a Griffin-6 Lowrider.

'What now?'

'Haircut. You don't think I'm going to spend the next few weeks looking like Joan of Arc, do you?'

'Ah!' said Hamlet. 'You hadn't mentioned it for a while so I'd stopped noticing. If it's all right with you, I'll just stay here and write a letter to Horatio. Does "pirate" have one "t" or two?'

'One.'